Mick's day..probably on wave selection..but close4sure.Kelly does some great airs-but he's already seen that he can't make it to the face.Mick doing his stuff-& getting to the inside section at Bells,time after time..that's not so easy,but he makes it look so.Nice footage.Cheers all
i remember watching the webcast of this like it was yesterday. mick doing the same tired carves/snaps (& claiming a 1' double-grab,) while kelly was pushing the limits of what was possible. here we are, eight years later, and that's still the most critical rotator ever landed in a comp, while mick's maneuvers are being done by teens at your local break.
I gotta push back on this. Slater was definitely the more radical surfer but his wave selection was terrible and he was doing everything possible to force the score. Mick was picking off the best waves and surfing them flawlessly, linking together far more turns and adding variety. That’s literally the criteria for places like Bells. The criteria is different for every location. You have to adapt your surfing to that criteria.
In bells beach maneuvers in sequence are much more valued, mick fanning maneuvers performed well expressive, the problem is that whenever Kelly is defeated, say he was robbed.
How do the Judjes give it to Nick, whom I dig all the way, kelly's AIR was sick!!! He won by my calcs. Kelly's Freakin' out, & jus keeps gettin better!
